Icefall: when your climbing route collapses

Will Mayo hung from a single tooth of his ice tool hooked into a seam in the rock, his arms stretched into an iron cross. All he had to do to finish his new route, Superfortress, was to move onto the 30m free-hanging ice pillar called The Fang, a famous ice climb in Vail, Colorado.

He kicked his crampon points into the ice near the top of The Fang, with 5m to go. A second later, the entire ice column cut loose 20cm below his feet, and approximately 10 tons of ice crashed into the mountainside below him.

Mayo's route, Superfortress, links four of the hardest mixed routes in Vail: Red Beard (M12), The Flying Fortress (M13), Red Bull and Vodka (M11+) and King Cobra (M11-). Mixed routes involve climbing up often overhanging rock on tiny holds and steep and thin ice using axes and crampons. It requires supreme technical ability, strength and coolness of mind.

The day before, he’d heard a loud crack as he climbed up the Fang — the column had fractured. He figured the tension was out of it and that more water flowing from above and freezing would strengthen it in the days to come.